Why doesn't there seem to be an EFL market in India? Never in my long hours of job website scanning have I seen one for India. I would imagine it might have something to do with British colonialism, that English is widely spoken by many natives who can teach it to others. But really I don't know.

I imagine the fact of Britsh colonialism had very little to do with the lack of ESL jobs in India today.Well,perhaps,indirectly.But you hit on the other reason in your post.English is already widely spoken and they have their own English teachers.Most people in this business just do not consider it a viable choice at all...the job market is just not there.Most people in this business do not even consider it for job purposes...if they want to go,they just visit it for a vacation or whatever,which is fine.Years ago,the Peace Corps was there(Jimmy Carter's mother was probably the most famous Peace Corps volunteer there),but I don't think the Peace Corps is there anymore.

You could try VSO or the British Council, they place ads from time to time. I have seen job ads for India previously, one in Kerala and one in New Delhi but if I recall the salary is understandably, quite low, perhaps even more so than Thailand. Recently, there was an ad on this website for a job in the Maldives (islands situated just below India).

India, like the Phillipines, exports teachers. They have enough of their own. English is still widely used and is one of the offical languages.

For some reason young and enthusiastic EFLers think in their initial enthusiasm that their TESL Cert from Dr Ripoff's Institute will allow them to go anywhere they want. The International Labour Market does not work that way. You will not find a job easily or at all in India and a host of other countries. This applies also to richer countries. Malta is out and so are Sweden and the Netherlands.

Do not believe all the hype you hear in this business !

Last edited by scot47 on Thu Mar 27, 2003 6:44 am; edited 1 time in total

The main reason there isn't an EFL job market in India is that the only people who could afford EFL lessons already speak it pretty well. So there is not the market, and in a country where university professors get around $500 a month, and other teachers much less, not even backpackers find it appealing in the mid to long term.

There is also an excellent pool of highly qualified teachers, and at least a couple of million native English speakers (impoosible really to quantify the figure because of lack of agreement on who is a native English speaker).

It is however the only place where Hamish's pet hate - the native English speaker whose qualifications are a knowledge of pubs and East Enders, or bars, baseball and Jerry Springer - will be hired to teach graduate non-native teachers with fluent English and the ability to quote the complete works of Shakespeare and Milton before breakfast. The reason is that most British, and many Americian service companies are outsourcing their call centres to India. The Indian companies hire qualified graduates to man them, but they need training in basic English culture.

The main reason why former British colonies don't need NETs is that students in those countries have enough exposure to the English language in all its forms, owing partly to the fact that it is widely used as a medium of instruction, and often, it doubles as the official language! In India, it is one of two, if I am not mistaken, official languages.

One of the EFL teaching opportunities in India that I've heard about is teaching Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, a beautiful town in the mountains, which is where the Dalai Lama lives. I personally know a guy who's done it; apparently it was one of the most awe-inspiring and rewarding experiences of his life. It was a volunteer position. I can find out more information and details, if you are interested.

Stephen Jones - you got it . The great Guru Hamish wishes you to know that you have grasped the essence of awe-inspiring reality. The average Indian teacher of English has a better grasap of English than the backpacking semiliterates who travel the world with no ability to differentiate between a participle and a partition.

GRASAP ? It is Anglo-Indian for "grasp" I only wished to display my proficiency in some of the more obscure forms of English - clearly unknown to those educated in the backwaters of the USA and the UK.

In my experience many of the teachers of English from India and Pakistan are much better educated than the backpacker BA element. Alas we meet them all over the world as universities in the English-speaking world continue to produce scores of semi-literates with BA degrees.